A place for all things beer.

The 15 most important Ontario beers ever

Accordingly, it’s a little tough to identify the beers that have been “game changers” here just yet. The game, that is, is still very much changing.

That said, in our still-short evolution toward better beer, there have been a handful of beers that most certainly helped Ontario’s craft beer scene get to where it is today.

Here are my picks for what those beers are. These aren’t the best beers, nor are they my favourites, rather they are the beers that have helped transform Ontario’s getting-closer-to-world-class-every-day beer culture thus far.

Upper Canada Brewing Company’s RebellionI’m not sure this two-row pale ale made with Cascade and Cluster hops (when the fuck is the last time you heard of someone using cluster hops??) would float anyone’s boat these days, but back in tha day, this was the only Canadian Pale Ale listed in the 1998 World Beer Championships and it scored an 85. So it wasn’t something to sneeze at.

More importantly though, this is THE gateway beer. This beer actually opened the doors for craft beer in the province. For a generation, it was like, oh shit, there’s another kind of beer?

Jason Fisher is the owner of Toronto’s Indie Alehouse and he points to this beer as a gamechanger. “Upper Canada Rebellion (and even their Lager) was the first beer in Ontario made with an eye toward flavour as opposed to filling a place in the market,” he says. “They didn’t give a fuck what any marketing people said. They brewed what they wanted to and, for a time, it was great. They brought in fresh German hops to make beer with which, at the time, was unheard of in Ontario.”

*real talk: I was 17 when Sleeman took over Upper Canada, got rid of this beer, and fired three guys that would go on to build another brewery in Toronto, so I never actually drank this one. But I gotta show love to an OG craft beer.

Since the doors opened in 2000, Steam Whistle Brewery has been among the first brewers to aggressively break down barriers in terms of growth and distribution and show that craft beer could play where the industrial lagers play. I have less insight into the goings-on since the last of the company’s founders, Greg Taylor, Cam Heaps, and Greg Cromwell, left, but I can tell you that Steam Whistle as a company fought many battles with the Beer Store, the LCBO, the big brewers, and the Ontario government that have proven beneficial to the brewers that have followed in their footsteps. An oft-leveled charge is that Steam Whistle is so big that they are no longer craft, and frankly, I’ve always found that idea to be naive and stupid. They are, of course, relevant because they managed to grow so big. They might no longer share much of the same concerns of small brewers, but they are still (for now) providing an example and representing an independent Ontario beer success story. In other words, don’t dismiss Steam Whistle because their branding and marketing and distinctive green bottle seem to be everywhere these days. I’d argue that’s exactly why they’re important.

(A quick note to the haters that always seem to pop up when I mention Steam Whistle: Say what you will about the direction of their business, Steam Whistle still makes an excellent Czech pilsner without any adjuncts, they are still ridiculously committed to ensuring their beer is served at optimal conditions, and they make efforts to ensure it’s delivered through clean lines. It’s a good beer.)

Denison’s Weissbier / Side Launch Wheat
Still fantastic, but now known as Side Launch Wheat, this is a beer with a storied pedigree of which many might not be aware. First brewed by Michael Hancock in 1990, the beer became popular at Growler’s Pub, Crazy Louie’s Brasserie, and Conchy Joe’s–the three restaurants that made up Denison’s Brewpub at 75 Victoria Street in Toronto. A textbook Bavarian Wheat Beer, it was named the best German Hefeweizen by Ratebeer in 2002. Sadly, the quality of this beer wasn’t enough to keep the lights on at Denison’s Brew Pub and it closed in 2003. Fortunately, Hancock was determined to keep this beer alive and, from 2003 – 2010, found brewing facilities in which to contract brew his Weissbier. This beer was actually one of the first beers brewed at Mill Street Brewery in the Distillery District when that company’s founders let Hancock use their facilities, then it was brewed at Etobicoke’s Black Oak Brewery. In 2008 Hancock commenced brewing his Weissbier at Cool Brewery, then in 2009 he took his operations for some time to the Amsterdam Brewery that used to be at the foot of Bathurst Street. Finally, in 2010, Hancock partnered with some people looking to start a brewery in Collingwood and, after much planning, Side Launch brewery was born. Hancock still serves as “Brewer Emeritus” for that company and this beer is still brewed today (and it’s still world class. Side Launch Wheat is still ranked as the 3rd best Wheat Beer in the world, per Ratebeer ).

This beer was one of the earliest examples of how great independent Ontario beer could be and, whether they knew it or not, likely influenced a generation of local drinkers’ perceptions of what a wheat beer should taste like. It’s also a testament to his ridiculous technical skill that Hancock managed to maintain the quality and consistency of this beer over 28 years while brewing at half a dozen different breweries, something a lot of new brewers have trouble doing from one batch to the next on their own systems.

Mill Street Brewery’s TankhouseAt the voter-chosen Golden Tap Awards in 2004, Mill Street Brewery’s Tankhouse Pale Ale tied Steam Whistle Pilsner as the best beer in the Greater Toronto Area. The beer was less than a year old and for Ontario’s fledgling craft beer scene, it was mind blowing–and there was nothing else like it for years. Tankhouse went on to win Best Beer Made in the GTA honours in 2005, 2006, and 2007 as well.

It seems weird now given the propensity for heavily-hopped ales that started to crest circa 2010 that this malt-heavy, copper coloured beer was once a revolutionary pale ale, but it really was.

“Mill Street’s Tankhouse was a game-changer in Ontario,” says Cass Enright, the owner of the beer forum bartowel and organizer of the Golden Tap Awards. “In the late 90s and early 2000s, beer lovers in Ontario were wanting fuller flavour and hoppy beers, but we had a lot of conservative styles dominating the landscape. When Tankhouse hit the scene it was immediately embraced: a rich pale ale with a strong (by the standards of the day) hoppiness. I would credit it as the beer that begun a “flavour forward” movement in Ontario that encouraged other breweries of the day (and ones that would open) to have richer flavoured beers as anchors of their portfolios.”

County Durham Brewing’s Hop HeadWhile you can still find County Durham beers on tap sporadically, mostly around Toronto, and while the company is now just one guy, Bruce Halstead, who brews whatever he feels like and on his own schedule, it’s hard to overstate how ubiquitous and groundbreaking the brewery, founded in 1996, once was. Their English styles, cask-conditioned offerings and early hop-forward beers like Hop Head were mainstays at Toronto’s earliest craft beer haunts like C’est What (which is still the best place to find Durham beers).

“Durham helped inspire me and Great Lakes Brewery,” says Mike Lackey, GLB’s brewmaster. “Hop Head was a revelation for me for a couple reasons. Having a pint (or seven) at C’est What? I loved how citrus forward it was with very little crystal malts in the grist bill. Hop-forward Ontario brews at the time tended to be more “balanced” by the caramel malts which always muddied the waters, in my opinion.”

Given that I still think caramel malt muddied pale ales are still something of an issue in Ontario, the beer that first launched the opposition is certainly worth a nod

Great Lakes Brewery’s Devil’s Pale Ale 666In the early to mid-2000s, Etobicoke’s Great Lakes Brewery was actually on the verge of losing their brewery. They will now admit they were largely “lager floggers” at the time who brewed with extract instead of grain and it…wasn’t great. Then, in 2006 the federal government changed the tax structure for small brewers and the break gave GLB a bit of boost–and some cash to start to try some new stuff. The result was Devil’s Pale Ale 666. It was sort of the the first big American-style craft beer here and one of the first here that came in a 473mL can. Plus it had a fun gimmick (666!! The Devil!!!). They launched the beer at the Toronto Festival of Beer and the gimmick helped them sell out of both the beer and the t-shirts that they brought to promote it. They added a branded hearse to their marketing efforts and, voila, the stage was set for Great Lakes’ second life. And the Ontario beer scene wasn’t the same.

Great Lakes Brewery’s Canuck
It is perhaps not a secret to most craft beer fans in Ontario that, after the Devil’s Pale Ale breakthrough, Great Lakes Brewery’s amazing hop-forward beers did not actually just spring forth from the brain of brewmaster Mike Lackey. I mean, they sort of did. He is, of course, one of this country’s best brewers, but his style was very influenced by trips to the US where he realized that no one was doing west coast style beer here in Ontario. The result is that he borrowed much from that scene and arguably officially introduced West Coast style IPAs and Pale Ales to this province. There is no better or more enduring example of this than Canuck, first brewed for the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. Today Canuck is still the beer that probably every brewer in Ontario would admit is their go-to beer. It is in this sense quite literally the benchmark against which all other pale ales in this province are brewed and judged. And for good reason. ‘Nuff said.

Black Oak Brewery’s 10 Bitter YearsIf you consider that the hop-forward pale ale Canuck was first released in 2010, it’s pretty crazy to think that 10 Bitter Years, Black Oak Brewery’s Imperial IPA came out a full year before Canuck did, in 2009.

“The whole idea behind 10 Bitter Years was to present an Imperial IPA to Ontario when most people were still afraid of hops,” says Black Oak’s Ken Woods. “It was to commemorate our 10th anniversary, and we discovered some hop heads did exist at that time. We sold all 25 cases in about two days out of our retail store.”

In this sense, 10 Bitter Years was something like Ontario’s first effort in experimenting with massive amounts of hops — so much so that Black Oak Brewer Ken Woods essentially had to create the dry-hopping process to brew this beer.

“The first time we made it,” Woods says, “it was dry-hopped into a tank without a standpipe and all the soggy mass of hops managed to clog my bottling machine. I’ve still got a bottle around here with an inch of green hops in it somewhere.”

And so the next time Black Oak attempted the beer, they opted to steep the beer in the tank and had to find something to keep the hops from clogging the tank. “Before the days of standpipes in tanks, we used pantyhose as a hop sock because it was easily sterilized,” Woods says. ‘We did get funny stares in the dollar store when buying 12 pairs at a time dressed in brewing gear.”

These days the beer is made in small batches and Woods says there is a lot of effort put into ensuring the time between packaging and consumption is as short as possible, but the original version, and its pantyhose-steeped predecessors, ushered in a new level of hopping in Ontario.

King Brewery’s PilsnerKing Brewery relaunced in 2015 under the Thornbury label that is now known as “Thornbury Village Cider House & Brewery” and includes four beers and some ciders, but before that, the little Nobleton brewery that launched in 2002 was something like the pilsner outlier in an an English and American style dominated scene.

The company had a dedication to one clean, crisp, Czech style lager that was unmatched (if perhaps overshadowed by Steam Whistle). Even as the industry trended toward hoppier and more extreme styles, Brewmaster and owner Philip DiFonzo made his beer using a decoction brewhouse that utilized a style rarely seen outside of Germany. There is a version of this beer still on the market, once rebranded as Pick Up Truck Pilsner and now Thornbury Pickup No. 26 Pilsener, for some fucking reason, but King Pilsner, in its first iteration, is quite possibly Ontario’s OG Crispy Boi.

Bellwoods Brewery’s Witchshark
I had my first sip of Bellwoods Brewery offerings among power tools and sawdust with two guys I only knew as “former Amsterdam Brewery employees” back in 2012 when the brewery was still a work in progress. Among the beers I sampled that fateful day was Witchshark, the now storied imperial IPA from Bellwoods, and it was what I’d call a “holy fuck” moment. The beer would go on to be the first real standout from a brewery that was recognized by Ratebeer in 2013 as the third best new brewery in the world. Witchskark, with its big, hoppy profile and remarkable balance, announced the arrival of a world-class brewery to Ontario’s scene, and did it in a 9% ABV, kick-you-in-the-ass way.

(It should be noted that Witchshark is basically a totally different beer today than it was when I first drank it at the under construction brewery. The most recent iteration is lighter, with an almost fluffy mouthfeel. Today it’s hazier, fruitier, and grassier. A lot of people were upset with the change, suggesting that Bellwoods should have kept Witchshark as is and released this new iteration as something different. I disagree. Tastes and trends change. The original Witchshark would not blow minds today they way it did in 2012. Why not change it up?)

Bellwoods Brewery’s Milkshark
Milkshark isn’t one beer, but rather a series of beers. First brewed using pineapple purée the beer is Bellwoods Brewery’s “milkshake style IPA,” and it has proven to be an extremely lucrative offering, spawning raspberry, strawberry, passion-fruit, grapefruit, Neapolitan, guava, and “tropical” versions (and more) which all very quickly sell out. Bellwoods wasn’t the first brewery in the world to brew a dry-hopped milkshake-style IPA with lactose sugar and vanilla, but it is undeniable that they did so with borderline ridiculous commercial success. People throw money at Bellwoods for this beer. Milkshark arguably took Bellwoods Brewery’s offerings from covet-worthy to an almost embarrassing collector status where it suddenly seemed like people had to make sure they tried every iteration (“You haven’t tried GUAVA?!”). The result is that lactose beers, love them or hate them, are now almost as ubiquitous in Ontario as IPAs were circa 2012. You’d be hard pressed to find a brewery in this province that hasn’t attempted some version of a milkshake beer and it’s clear to me that we have Milkshark to thank for that, for better or for worse.

Beau’s All Natural Lug Tread Lagered AleIt’s actually kind of hard to believe that Beau’s only opened their doors in 2007. In a relatively short time, they’ve done an incredible amount of work building the company up and, with almost no exceptions, they’ve done all the things they’ve done in an admirable and conscientious manner. They expanded distribution outward from Vankleek Hill in a measured and strategic way, they embraced environmental sustainability as part of their business model, they opened ownership up to their employees, and their owner, Steve Beauchesne, has been a leading voice in the conversation about the province’s craft beer industry. It’s actually kind of fucked up how…good they are.

Mark Murphy, co-owner of Toronto’s Left Field Brewery, concurs. “For me, that’s the first Ontario beer/brewery where you really got a sense for the people behind it,” he says. “Such friendly people with a passion for great beer and community. And they were the first ones to really show what that model can do in terms of their explosive growth.

In other words, they just do things right and their beer is generally no exception. Lug Tread, their flagship, approachable, reasonable, and all around…nice…beer is no exception. It’s essentially always been a perfect extension of their brand, and it still is.

Tooth and Nail’s Vim & Vigor
This beer seems to have taken the province’s newfound respect for clean, crisp beers to its predictable, admirable, and delicious extreme. It’s pretty much a perfect pilsner. Milos Kral, owner and operator of Milos Craft Beer Emporium here in London, will often find a way to get some of this beer from Ottawa to tap at his place. “[Tooth and Nail Brewer] Matt Tweedy is one if the few Ontario brewers with an extreme passion for the craft and disdain for gimmicks,” Kral says. “His pilsner is a fantastic rendition of German style. It is a consistent, refreshing, simple lager, and it takes great skill to produce a beer this good batch after batch.”

Maybe it’s provincial palate fatigue, or a newfound respect for balance, but Vim & Vigor has quickly become the benchmark “crispy boi” in Ontario and I only pray it’s here to stay.

Burdock Brewery’s BUMOBurdock Brewery came out of the gates awesome, then ditched its head brewer, took a second to find its new stride, then essentially came back a different kind of awesome. Case in point, BUMO, which isn’t actually a beer but a series of collaboration beers made with Niagara Region winery Pearl Morissette.

The first iteration was a bottle-conditioned sparkling pinot noir rose Saison blend that underwent mixed fermentation, BUMOs II and III were both pinot noir, pinot rose, and farmhouse saison blends, BUMO IV was made with Cabernet Franc, and the most recent was made with riesling and mixed fermentation wild ale, barrel-aged on orange wine skins.

I would argue that these experimental winery/brewery collabs have enjoyed various degrees of success, but they’ve each been quite different and helped push boundaries and change Ontario beer drinkers’ understanding of what beer can be.

Granite Peculiar or Best Bitter
While we tend to think of Ontario’s beer evolution in terms of our readiness to adapt the big, brash styles of our brewing pioneer neighbours to the south, it’s worth noting that, along the way, our brewers have picked up a trick or two from across the pond. When the Granite Brewery and Tied House opened in Toronto in 1991, the idea of bringing English style beer to a market that was dominated by the industrial lagers of Molson and Labatt was about as crazy as dumping fruit loops in a mash is today. The old fashioned, perfectly balanced English ales were actually fairly radical, especially given the breweries propensity to do open fermented ales for cask.

“Granite has been one of the cornerstones of the Ontario beer scene since they opened,” says Iain MacOustra, Brewmaster at Amsterdam Brewery. “[Father and daughter team] Ron and Mary Beth are both wonderful people, the staff is great and no one makes better English styles and cask beer in Ontario than they do.”

Granite’s Peculiar is a stronger, reddish-brown malty ale and their Best Bitter is a classic English style bitter. Both have a ridiculous, silky mouthfeel and softness to them that makes them about as comforting as any beer can be. While this style of beer seems to be increasingly out of favour (though I’m hoping for a comeback), Granite’s English style ales were a groundbreaking development in their time and part of many a young brewers’ beer education.

Great list. For my personal list I would add Wellington Iron Duke and Arkell Best Bitter, both stood out for me in bringing new ale flavors, only found in the UK, to my American lager pallette in the early 2000s. RIP Arkell.

I drank an awful lot of Upper Canada back in the day, circa something like 1995-2000. It’s quite possibly the only good thing to ever come out of Liberty Village.

Steam Whistle is fine and I don’t understand the hate for this beer either. That said, the Purity Seal is complete tosh. What problem does this solve, exactly?

Tankhouse was a godsend back in the 2000s and showed up often on West Queen West taps lists and I almost feel like having one now for old time’s sake. It’s been forever.

That said, I was more of a fan of Cameron’s Auburn Ale and went through a tonne of the nine packs (remember those boxes of 3 x 3 bottles? Brewed by a connoisseur, not an accountant?). Like so many beers from that era they’re no great shakes now, but at the time…sigh.

I also have a lot of good memories of Wellington Imperial Russian Stout back in the mid-2000s. I don’t recall there being much else like it back then.

(I wrote the following before Randy posted.)

I know it’s fashionable to point out glaring omissions in listicles, but I would make this list 16 and add Scotch Irish Sgt. Majors IPA which, honestly I don’t even remember what it tasted like, but it was pretty much the only IPA around during the chicken-and-egg days when Ontario brewers seemed hellbent on stymieing the industry using the logic that Ontario wasn’t ready for IPAs, so they won’t brew IPAs. But Ontario wasn’t ready for IPAs because nobody was brewing them for them to try*.

This logic seemed to fly in the face of the fact that there was nothing special about the palates of Ontarians at the time, and one had only to look south of the border to see that IPAs could be a cash-cow for any Ontario brewer willing to step up to the plate and brew them. Quid pro quo.

* There was the odd IPA imported into Ontario at the time, like the brief time the LCBO carried DFH 60 minute or Southern Tier IPA, but I honestly don’t exactly remember the timelines of when these things came and went or how widely they were distributed outside of Toronto LCBOs.

Sleeman Cream Ale, Upper Canada Dark Ale, Creemore Lager, Brick or Red Baron lager, Adlys Ale, and for that matter Labatt Classic turned a lot of people on to craft beers, and could easily appear in a list of this type.

Everyone’s perspective reflects a different dimension of an undertaking like this, which is not to say it’s not worthwhile to try.

I would say that Molson’s Brador was the gateway beer for many future craft beer drinkers in the 80’s. It was (relatively) dark, had a high ABV and fancy packaging that told Ontario beer drinkers there was something out there other than watery pilsners. Beers I would love to try again to see if they held up are Elora Pale Ale, Niagara Falls Olde Jack and Conner’s Best Bitter.

I don’t know if it would be a top 15 beer but I think Dragon’s Breath pale ale from Hart Breweries (not the Kingston brewpub version) should get more respect for originating the session ipa trend about 20 years before anyone else. I did my best to keep them in business but I failed…

As a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, I remember my dad (who immigrated from Poland) constantly complaining about Canadian beer. The only beer he felt was worth his time was Upper Canada. Glad to see it on the list! Although I remember the label being red.

It’s probably too Canadian of me to say this, but picking two styles from one brewery misses out on the chance to give other breweries their place on this list. Like it or hate, Spearhead’s Hawaiian Style Pale Ale stretched the boundaries more than copying milkshake IPAs from Pennsylvania. Good story to boot. Hard to believe that Sam Corbeil’s Sawdust City got shut out as well.

Thank you Ben for pulling this comprehensive list together. Of course, limited to 15 you will never please everyone as evidenced by some of the comments. If the list were say, the top 25 beers that shaped the Ontario craft beer scene, I too would have added St Major’s IPA, and also Connor’s Best Bitter, Creemore, Niagara (Ice Bock and Old Jack), Beaver Valley Amber (no, I am not kidding!*), Elora, Brick Lager (first craft beer to market in Ontario; ’85), Wellington (Arkel BB and Iron Duke) and anything produced at the Kingston Brewing Company. There are more but I can’t think of them this early in the day.

* For those as long in the tooth as I am, you may recall the early days at Upper Canada when, in response to the incredible market success of the then new Creemore Springs Lager, Upper Canada planned to build a rival ‘country brewery’ in Thornbury. Until that day would come, they (we) brewed a new pale ale packaged under the Beaver Valley Amber label. Needless to say with that ‘unusual’ name it didn’t fly off the shelves as was hoped. Still, the beer (created by the infamous Viv Jones; also the creator of the original UC Rebellion Lager incidently) was wonderful and very much ahead of its’ time. Years later, that basic recipe reemerged vis a vis the brewing expertise of Dr Richard Wrench as the Publican Bitter. It was a local fan favourite while it lasted. Then, by the mid ’90’s, with a new management in place at Upper Canada and an IPO that was imminent, the Rebellion Lager was pulled from the UCBC line-up and relaunched as part of a separate Rebellion brand along side the new (sort of) Rebellion Pale Ale. Descended from the Beaver Valley gene pool, the addition of American hops moved the Rebellion Pale Ale across the stylistic pond. But the real descendant of the original Beaver Valley Amber was Woody’s Wild Ale. The new Rebellion brand plus Woody’s were together created to be the edge on the sword that was to cut a piece out of the lucrative American craft beer market. Money earned through the IPO was to fund this southward invasion. Sadly, it was a case of ‘a bridge too far’ and the rest is history.

To add some context to your choice of Upper Canada as one of the 15, I would offer that it was in fact the Lager and Dark Ale that laid the footings and foundation stones of the craft beer rennaissnce from which we all benefit today. Thank you again for your article.

Great article Ben,
This made me ponder my personal craft beer journey. Tankhouse was my first foray into craft beer, from the first sip….it was like wow what is this taste? Became a go-to on my cottage deck, cooler of ice cold Tankhouse. This introduced me to hop flavours. To this day I am still a hop head. Which leads to me to another in this list, Canuck, which is my new go-to….great flavour with relatively low alcohol. Hopefully a new trend is brewiing (pardon the pun), to bring flavourful hop flavour beers with lower abv. As I age I still love IPAs, but not always the 7% aspect. There are a couple session ones that come to mind like Nickelbrook Lost in Orbit and Great Lakes Sunnyside Session that still retain great flavour. I hope to see more of these.

Again, thanks for the great article, great journey down memory lane of beers many of us discovered that changed the beer landscape.

It doesn’t qualify as an Ontario game changer but London’s Glatt Brothers ESB was my introduction to craft beer in the early to mid 1990’s and probably for many others. When they closed, it was several years before I discovered Tankhouse Ale and Mad Tom IPA.

I am 50. The beers I clearly remember as being ‘craft’ because they were uniquely flavourful be they from real, upstart craft breweries or one of the majors were:
Labatt IPA, Labatt Velvet Cream Porter, John Labatt Classic, Brador, Brick & Red Baron, Upper Canada, Sleeman, Connors and Arkell. All of these were flavour-forward and so distinctive for their time. Wish they were all still aournd today. Classic even came in special oak cases!

Post navigation

There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says "Good People Drink Good Beer."
Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad People Drink Bad Beer.
Think about it.